


a little ugly never hurt nobody

by Padraigen



Series: Happy Steve Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Light Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 19:07:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padraigen/pseuds/Padraigen
Summary: Prompt: "I’m not leaving this booth until I win that stupid stuffed animal you want... No, I don’t care how much money it takes!"—It’s cheap and plastic, a blue band just barely big enough to fit around his pinky finger, with a white star glued on top. It means nothing.Steve still loves it.





	a little ugly never hurt nobody

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for the Happy Steve Bingo 2019 square "I’m not leaving this booth until I win that stupid stuffed animal you want... No, I don’t care how much money it takes!"
> 
> This work is unbeta'd. I apologize for any glaring mistakes.
> 
> Enjoy!

They’re at the fair.

It’s a yearly tradition for their group; the beginning of summer is always filled with excited and pent-up energy. Exams are over, for better or for worse, vacations are being planned for those forgoing summer classes, and, for the first couple weeks, worries are forgotten.

Where’s a better place to celebrate?

“Havana?” Tony says, and Steve isn’t surprised in the least. Tony’ll use any excuse he’s given to go dancing. “Maybe a bar? My huge, glamorous, _expensive_ mansion? I could go on.”

“C’mon, Tony, don’t be such a spoilsport,” Pepper says, grabbing his hand and dragging him along. And Tony might moan and complain a lot, but it’s telling that he doesn’t fight her. Steve swallows uncomfortably. “It’s _tradition_.”

“I’m sorry, did you just call me a _spoilsport_?” Tony takes a breath, undoubtedly about to go off on a long and rambling tirade, but gets cut off by Rhodey before he can say a word. Steve is a little disappointed, but he can’t help smiling when Tony’s lips purse in a pout.

“Hey, Tony! Come check this out.”

It’s here that the group splits, Thor in the lead as he marches his way to the funnel cake stand. Bruce and Clint are right behind him, but Natasha pauses to glance at Steve questioningly. Steve shakes his head and waves her away, but she doesn’t leave immediately. Her eyes instead cut to Tony and back, quick enough that Steve wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been paying attention. Natasha only gives a curt nod when she catches his eye again, and in the next moment she’s gone.

There’s an anxious lump in the pit of Steve’s stomach that he ignores as he follows Tony and Pepper to the pay-per-play booth. Four hoops line the back of the stand, a dozen basketballs below them. Steve inwardly groans, already wary of the way Tony eyes the hoops. He doesn’t have to ask to know Tony’s calculating in his head the best way to beat the game.

“I think Pepper wants the dolphin,” Rhodey goads.

“What? I do _not_—” Steve smiles at the way Pepper sputters, as even he had caught the way she’d been staring at the massive stuffed dolphin hanging from the top of the stand.

“What my lady wants, my lady gets.” Tony ignores Pepper’s protests and slaps down a five dollar bill. “C’mon Pepper, it’s just physics. You _know_ how good I am at physics.”

Steve has to look away from the lascivious grin Tony shoots Pepper as he takes the first basketball from the attendant running the stand. He lifts his arms, positions his feet, aims, and… His first shot misses. Tony frowns. “Okay, just an experimental shot.”

His frown deepens as he misses the next one, too, and he outright growls when he misses the shot after that. Steve could tell him that he’s just using too much force, but he knows Tony wouldn’t appreciate the critique.

Tony grabs his wallet when he realizes that he hasn’t got any balls left, but Pepper grabs it from his hands before he can get any money out.

“Tony, _no_. I don’t need the dolphin. Let’s just go ride the ferris wheel.”

Tony makes a grab for his wallet, but Pepper’s too quick, putting it behind her back and out of reach. “Pepper! I’m not leaving this booth until I win that stupid stuffed animal you want—”

“Tony—”

“No, I don’t care how much money it takes!”

“Alright, fine! You can stay here, but I’m gonna go find the others.”

It takes only a split second to realize that she still has Tony’s wallet, but by then Pepper’s already gone.

“Dammit.”

“Hey, you got any consolation prizes for my man?” Rhodey asks the attendant.

“What?” Tony glares at Rhodey, but the attendant has already pulled out a box of cheap baubles. “No, that’s okay, I don’t want a consolation prize.”

“Go on, Tony, it’ll at least show you tried, right? And that’s what really matters.” Rhodey says it so sincerely that even Steve has to laugh.

“Yeah, okay, laugh it up. I didn’t see either of you make any baskets.”

Tony’s grumbling as he rummages through the box, but Steve can tell he’s not really upset. His brown eyes are gleaming with amusement, and he’s clearly trying very hard to hold back a smile. He pulls something out of the box with an “Aha!” and tosses the object to Steve, who catches it with ease. “Look, an ugly ring to match your ugly flannel. I got it just for you, Steve.”

“Gee, thanks.” Steve rolls his eyes, hoping to play off the blush staining his cheeks. If Tony or Rhodes notice, they don’t say anything, so he decides to play along. He slides the ring on and pretends that he doesn’t see Tony’s pleased smile.

It’s cheap and plastic, a blue band just barely big enough to fit around his pinky finger, with a white star glued on top. It means nothing.

Steve still loves it.

*

The morning after the fair, Steve loops a chain through the ring and lets it hang from his neck. It rests on bare skin, under his shirt like a pair of dog tags might. Like it’s enough to declare who he is.

Maybe it is.

He gets a thrill wearing it wherever he goes, knowing it’s _right there_ and that _anybody_ could see it if they just pulled down his collar a bit. He has a sense of nervous excitement whenever he’s in Tony’s presence, but he doesn’t know why.

Tony never notices anything, and Steve never says a word.

*

It’s months later that he’s at Tony’s house (“_Mansion,_” Tony corrects emphatically, and Steve can hardly argue with that), and they’re celebrating Tony’s birthday.

Steve has been agonizing over what to get him for the past couple of weeks, and he’d finally settled on the old watch that used to belong to his dad. But tonight, the more he thinks about it, the more stupid it becomes.

It’s too personal. Tony has enough money to afford a hundred different watches of much better quality. Tony could create his own watch. Tony’s purposely never on time to anything, so what does he need a watch for anyway?

Steve doesn’t know what he’d been thinking.

It’s just… whenever he sees Tony, he sees everything that’s to come. Tony’s always ten steps ahead, living in a world no one else can even see yet, not the way he does. He’s always creating and inventing, like his very purpose on this earth is to make things _better_. Tony wears the future like a perfectly-tailored three-piece suit.

Steve thinks maybe he thought that something a little vintage could balance him out a bit, that maybe a bit of the past could bring Tony more into the present. Maybe if he slows Tony down a little, it’ll be enough for him to catch up.

And for a moment, Steve thinks maybe that wasn’t stupid at all. Tony’s staring at the watch and then he’s staring at Steve, and yes, it’s ridiculous—and because it’s Steve, it’s even more pitiful—but Steve likes to imagine that he sees longing there, in the way Tony’s eyes are lit up, and maybe a bit of wistfulness, too.

But then the party ends, and months pass. Steve never sees Tony wear the watch.

He should have known better, really.

There is nothing on this planet, or in this solar system, that could slow Tony down.

*

Steve still wears the ring around his neck. In fact, he hardly ever takes it off.

He wears it through the dwindling months left at school. He wears it through Tony and Pepper’s breakup. He wears it to bed every night, twisting it around his fingers as he imagines himself working up the courage to tell Tony how he feels. He wears it even as he never does.

*

Steve can hardly believe that school’s over.

They’re back at Tony’s house, celebrating graduating, and Steve has stepped out onto one of its many balconies to take a moment for himself. Before he consciously decides to do it, he’s taken the ring out from under his shirt and is twisting it about his fingers as is his wont, wondering about the future and why it never seems as daunting to Tony as it does to him.

The minutes pass him by, and before he has time to even think, let alone put the ring back under his shirt, Tony has strolled out to stand beside him, hands in his pockets, clearing his throat as he does so.

Steve drops the ring like it’s something hot enough to scald but has enough presence of mind not to stuff it under his shirt like a child caught doing something naughty. His face burns as he sets his hands on the railing, and he very carefully doesn’t look at Tony.

“Having fun?” Tony asks after a moment of quiet.

Steve looks over his shoulder, through the glass doors, but he doesn’t really see anything. It’s just a blur of people laughing and enjoying themselves. “It’s a blast, Tony, really,” he says, because he thinks that’s what Tony would want to hear.

“Yeah,” Tony replies eventually, almost like an afterthought. He pulls his hands out of his pockets and leans his forearms on the railing. He’s so close, Steve imagines he can feel the heat of him through his light jacket.

They stay like that, silent and uncomfortable, and Steve gets tenser for every minute that passes and the other shoe doesn’t drop.

Finally, Tony says, “I’m surprised you still have that.”

And Steve… Steve doesn’t even pretend not to know what he’s referring to. “Are you criticizing my choice of accessory, Stark?”

Steve expects a laugh, a witty rejoinder, anything to make this moment seem less important than Steve wants it to be. But Tony just says, “No, I…” and he frowns. But then he straightens again, turns to Steve, and says, “Come with me for a sec?”

Steve is caught off guard by the unexpected question, and he hesitates. But then he’s nodding, straightening himself, and he follows Tony back into the house, up a couple flights of stairs and into a vast room that Steve can only assume is Tony’s, as Steve has never been in his room before. He’s a bit bewildered that he’s allowed in now. Bewildered and expectant.

Tony leads him to the nightstand beside his king size bed, and waits. Steve is confused for only a moment, before he sees what it is Tony wants him to see.

On the nightstand is Steve’s father’s old watch. It looks like it hasn’t been touched since the day Steve had given it to Tony, still sitting in the box Steve had had it wrapped in. He glances at Tony in question, trying to conceal the relief coursing through him that Tony even still has it. That he hadn’t put it in storage somewhere, or just thrown it out.

“I wake up and stare at that thing every morning. And every morning I want to put it on, and wear it out, and show it off to everyone I know. But in the end, I never do.”

Steve’s heart has started pounding in chest at some point during the admission. It feels like a confession, and Steve… Steve really isn’t sure how to take that. He wants to say something, anything, just to make that pinched look on Tony’s face go away, but he doesn’t know what.

“D’you know, this is the only piece of machinery I have ever owned that I haven’t taken apart and put back together at least once?” Tony looks at him then, like he’s expecting a reaction. The problem is, Steve doesn’t know what Tony expects from him. “It’s like I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll mess it up. I’ll break it. And I don’t want to break it, Steve.” The look he gives Steve now is significant, and suddenly, Steve thinks he understands a little bit better. He smiles.

“You couldn’t possibly break it, Tony,” Steve says to reassure him. “If anything, you’d accidently make it better.”

Tony chuckles, low and sweet, shakes his head, and says teasingly, “I can’t make it better. The sheer fact that it was given to me by Steve Rogers must mean that it’s already perfect.”

Steve grins, something undeniably delighted searing through his veins. He steps forward and slowly, oh so slowly, dips his head, a hand moving to encircle Tony’s waist, pulling him closer. Tony lifts his head to meet him, eyes already closed. Their lips meet.

*

It’s years later, and Tony has gotten him a new ring. It’s made out of a rare metal Tony tells him he doesn’t want to know the expense of, and it sits proudly, perfectly fitted, on the fourth finger of his left hand.

He still has the plastic ring, however; the first one Tony had ever given to him with the blue band and white star. He wears it where he always has—under his shirt, against the bare skin of his chest like a pair of dog tags.

Steve chuckles whenever Tony teases him for it, and he teases Tony right back whenever he calls it ugly. Because, silently, Steve disagrees.

The sheer fact that it was given to him by Tony Stark must mean that it is perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, and have a moment, I would really appreciate knowing your thoughts in the comments! Thank you very much :)
> 
> Come find me on [tumblr](https://padraigendragon.tumblr.com/)!


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